Europe is at war. Not conventional military conflict, but
a battle against an unprecedented, rampant virus.

An epizootic some are calling ‘pig Ebola’, officially known
as African swine fever (ASF), has already laid waste the Chinese pig industry,
and soon it will have European pig farms in its clutches.

Or certainly, that is how things are looking, given the
current readiness levels in Europe and the rapid escalation of Eastern European
outbreaks of infection.

The main concern for Europe’s pork producers is that the
virus has reached Belgium: specifically, the French border with Belgium. France
is planning a segregation fence for this reason; Denmark has already started
building its own, this one on the border with Germany. Each of these nations
aims to block the migration of wild boar which also carry the virus and are
often responsible for the transmission of infections across borders.

The disease is devasting to domesticated pig populations,
killing 90 percent of animals infected. While the virus only affects pigs, the
consequences of large-scale contraction in a country are being demonstrated in
harrowing fashion in China. There have been recorded outbreaks of ASF in every
province in the country, with the first cases having emerged in August last
year. The government has admitted to culling 2 million animals so far, however,
analyst have posited that this is a massive undercount.

Researchers are placing estimates of animals dead by the end
of the year at 200 million, or roughly half of all Chinese pigs. The scale is
shocking, particularly as China is home to more than half of the global pig
population.

“It’s historic; there’s never been anything like this in the
history of modern animal production,” said Christine McCracken, a senior
analyst. “And it’s a frightening situation only in that there is no current
control.”

At present, there is no cure or vaccine for African swine
fever, although research is underway.

In Europe, outbreaks have been building slow but steady
momentum. Recently, the European Commission placed Poland, Bulgaria, and
Lithuania on a list of high-risk areas. However, while cases have been recorded
all across Eastern Europe, and now, inevitably, in Belgium as well, the
response from European authorities has been limited.

Elsewhere, it is being described as the biggest animal
disease outbreak ever seen on the planet, one that makes the foot and mouth
disease and mad cow disease outbreaks seem trivial.

“Given the magnitude of the losses in China’s hog and pork
supplies, the impending impact on global protein supply…is likely to be a
multi-year event,” predicted Noel White, the CEO of US-based Tyson Foods.

Experts now fear that the outbreak will spread across
ASF-free countries due to inadequate import controls. “Given a nearly 100%
fatality rate depending on the serotype of the virus, every component involved
in swine production must be evaluated — including feed”, says Peter Fidder,
director of Quality Affairs at Trouw Nutrition. “High-risk ingredients include
grains, vegetable carriers and ingredients like vitamins or pigments on
vegetable carriers”, he adds.

Last year, ASF was found in Chinese animal feed, just before
“scientists in the US discovered that potentially harmful DNA from the African
swine fever (ASF) virus can survive on feed ingredients including corn, rice
and wheat, as well as complete feed, imported from Asia”, PigWorld UK Magazine
reports.

Before the most recent string of outbreaks, experts warned
that ASF represented a serious threat to the global pig industry due to the
nature of the virus and the lack of preventions available.

Vaccine development against ASF has been hampered by large
gaps in knowledge concerning ASFV infection and immunity. However, following
the crushing effects of the past year, efforts towards vaccine research, at
least in the US, have stepped up significantly.